Pennsylvania Dutch Soft Sugar Cookies

Pennsylvania Dutch Soft Sugar Cookies - made May 22, 2011 from Cookies Unlimited by Nick Malgieri (book #113)

I've baked a few recipes from this book and it's well worth having.  The recipes are varied, the directions straightforward and they generally come out pretty well.  My only "problem" with it is there are so many good-looking recipes in it that I always have a hard time choosing only one at a time to make from it.  I almost made the Orange Dream Cookies from it and plan to get to that one someday but this time around, I went with this recipe to use up the last of my buttermilk.  I've seen variations of this sugar cookie in various recipe books.  Because of the ingredients list, I was expecting something soft and cakelike.  Sure enough, even the dough was more like a stiff cake batter or a very soft cookie dough.  I chilled the whole thing in the fridge first before I even scooped them into dough balls for the freezer.  Otherwise I think they would've been too soft to hold a round shape.

I made up the cookie dough last Sunday before I went back to work so I had the dough balls ready in the freezer to be baked at a moment's notice whenever I felt like it.  Normally I don't really like cakey cookies.  I've said before, if I wanted cakey, I'd make a cake, not cookies.  But I have to admit, these weren't bad.  I'd classify them more as a cake in cookie form than my idea of a real cookie but they were pretty tasty.  Like little vanilla cakes rather than sugar cookies.  They don't spread much but they do puff out.  Do not overbake these and err on the side of underbaking them.  Otherwise they'll easily become dry.  They're not that sweet and since they're cakey, they'd probably be pretty good frosted.  Top with your favorite vanilla frosting or any other type of frosting and eat the same day you bake them. Treat them like cakes and assume they'll dry easily if left too long.

You can see how cakey it is on the inside

4 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

Pinch salt

16 tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

2 cups sugar

3 teaspoons vanilla extract

3 large eggs

1 cup buttermilk

1.      Set the racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven and preheat to 375⁰F.

2.      In a bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; stir well to mix.

3.      In the bowl of a standing electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the butter and the sugar until combined, then beat in the vanilla.  Add the eggs, one at a time, beating smooth after each addition.  Lower the speed and beat in a third of the flour mixture, then half the buttermilk, and another third of the flour mixture.  Scrape the bowl and beater often.  Beat in the remaining buttermilk, then the remaining flour mixture.

4.      Scrape the bowl and beater, then remove the bowl from the mixer, and give the dough one final mixing with the large rubber spatula.

5.      Drop tablespoons of the dough 3 or 4 inches apart onto the prepared pans.

6.      Bake the cookies for about 15 minutes, or until they spread and rise – they should be lightly golden.

7.      Slide the papers off the pans onto racks.

8.      After the cookies have cooled, detach them from the paper and store them between layers of parchment or wax paper in a tin or plastic container with a tight-fitting cover.

Browned Butter Banana Cake with Butterscotch Chips

Browned Butter Banana Cake - made May 21, 2011 from Absolutely Chocolate from the editors of Fine Cooking (book #112)

As summer approaches and more seasonal fruits become abundant, you might find yourself neglecting the ubiquitous, available-year-round banana and find them ripening faster than you can eat them because you've been indulging yourself on strawberries, apricots, cherries, peaches and other spring/summer bounty.  Never fear, that's what banana baked goods are for.  I've been going through a browned butter fixation lately and looking for recipes that use it.  I've made banana cakes before but never with browned butter and I wanted to see what that flavor combination was like.  So this recipe was perfect for experimentation with the overripe bananas I had hanging around.

The original recipe for this cake called for using miniature semisweet chocolate chips but I substituted chopped up bits of butterscotch chips instead as I like butterscotch paired with banana more than a banana and chocolate combination.  I haven't used this recipe book much (or at all) before but I remember looking through it when I first got it and finding a lot of good-looking recipes to try.  Then I stuck it on a shelf with more of its brethren and somehow forgot about it or never went back to it.  Hence once again why my baking challenge is good for me.

This cake was delicious - the brown butter complements the banana, although the banana flavor is more dominant, of course.  But it does have a subtle caramelized flavor.  I love the butterscotch chips as more of a complement rather than a contrast which is what I think chocolate chips would've been.  I'm glad I made the substitution.  The texture was cakey and moist, actually similar to my banana bread recipe but a bit more cake-like.  It's not too sweet either.  Overall, thumbs up and a great way to use overripe bananas.

8 ounces (1 cup) unsalted butter; more for the pan

1 1/3 cups granulated sugar

3 large eggs

1 cup finely mashed ripe bananas (2 medium bananas)

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

½ teaspoon salt

7 ½ ounces (1 2/3 cups) unbleached all-purpose flour; more for the pan

1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda

2/3 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips (I used butterscotch chips)

1.      Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350⁰F. Butter and flour a 10-cup decorative tube or bundt pan.  Tap out any excess flour.

2.      Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat.  Once the butter is melted, cook it slowly, letting it bubble, until it smells nutty or like butterscotch and turns a deep golden hue, 5 to 10 minutes.  If the butter splatters, reduce the heat to low.  Remove the pan from the heat and pour the browned butter through a fine sieve into a medium bowl and discard the bits in the sieve.  Let the butter cool until it’s very warm rather than boiling hot, 5 to 10 minutes.

3.      Using a whisk, stir the sugar and eggs into the butter.  Whisk until the mixture is smooth (the sugar may still be somewhat grainy), 30 to 60 seconds.  Whisk in the mashed bananas, vanilla and salt.  Sift the flour and baking soda directly onto the batter.  Pour the chocolate chips over the flour.  Using a rubber spatula, stir just until the batter is uniformly combined.  Don’t overmix.

4.      Spoon the batter into the prepared pan, spreading it evenly with the rubber spatula.  Bake until a skewer inserted in the center comes out with only moist crumbs clinging to it, 42 to 45 minutes.  Set the pan on a rack to cool for 15 minutes.  Invert the cake onto the rack and remove the pan.  Let cool until just warm and then serve immediately or wrap well in plastic and store at room temperature for up to five days.

Slow Cooker Orange Chicken

Slow Cooker Orange Chicken - made May 20, 2011 from This Woman Cook's blog

I loved how this looked on Christina's blog (click on title for the recipe on her blog) and it was just the kind of cooking I can do: mix stuff up, put in a slow cooker and leave it alone until it's done.  And now that I'm working, I also needed to figure out some simple, easy meals I can make or have ready when I get home from work.

As easy as crock pot cooking is, I rarely do it.  For one thing, I have the regular size which is rather largish for one person so when I do use it, it means lots of leftovers and eating the same thing in the future, even if I freeze some.  For another, invariably, whatever I make turns out soupy.  It might be tasty-soupy but soupy nonetheless and sometimes I just don't want soupy.  I end up eating too much rice to sop up the sauce. But I couldn't resist this recipe because I love orange chicken and it was so easy to make.  I'm glad I tried it because it was good and incredibly easy to put together.  It did come out a bit soupy and I tried to thicken it with a little cornstarch but there was still a lot of soupy sauce.  But that's okay as I figure I can always cook more chicken to go with the sauce. 

Oh, and how your sauce turns out is of course going to depend on the ingredients you use so use your favorite barbecue sauce (I used Trader Joe's Kansas City-Style Barbecue Sauce) and marmalade (I used Dundee Orange Marmalade - also from TJ's).  Thanks, Christina, for the recipe!

Charlie's Afternoon Chocolate Cake

Charlie's Afternoon Chocolate Cake - made May 18, 2011 from Chocolate Epiphany by Francois Payard (book #111)

There are many decadent-sounding recipes in this cookbook, accompanied by mouthwatering pictures.  The picture of this cake in the cookbook looks like the creamiest baked fudge so it was almost inevitable that I had to make it.  Notice the relatively short list of ingredients and how prominently chocolate figures into it.  To sound like a broken record, please use high quality chocolate on this one.  It'll make all the difference and render the calories worth it.  I used Valrhona - $2.99 for a 3-ounce package at Trader Joe's. I needed these to pack in goodie bags which is harder to portion out when you bake something in a round pan so I made this in a 9" square baking pan.

This has no chemical leavening and the instructions don't call for beating it a lot so I didn't expect it to rise much, if at all.  It spread into a thin layer in a 9-inch pan so next time I'd bake it in an 8-inch pan just to have it a little thicker. If you do that, be sure to adjust for the baking time.  I followed the recipe exactly with regards to the size of pan and the baking temps and times so I didn't even bother with the toothpick test on this one.  The chocolate set as it cools and it has a fragile texture but a great taste (from the "good" chocolate).  It was just a trifle too sweet for me so next time I'd use a darker chocolate than 60%.  I like my chocolate candy and truffles to be milk chocolate but chocolate baked goods to be a deeper, richer chocolate.  But this is a crazy-easy cake to put together so if you need to whip up something fast, this is a good choice.  If you do bake in a 9-inch pan, the thin squares would make a good base for a scoop of ice cream.  Just sayin'....

10 tablespoons unsalted butter

8 ounces 60% chocolate, chopped

2 large eggs

2/3 cup sugar

¾ cup all-purpose flour

1.      Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350⁰F.  Spray the sides and bottom of a round 9-inch cake pan with nonstick cooking spray.  Dust it with flour, shaking off the excess and set aside.

2.      Bring the butter to a boil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat.  Stir a couple of times to prevent it from burning.  Remove from the heat and add the chocolate to the pan.  Stir the mixture until the chocolate is melted and smooth.

3.      Whisk together the eggs and sugar in a large bowl until well combined.  Add the flour and mix well.  Add the chocolate to the batter and stir until the mixture is just combined.  Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan.

4.      Bake for 15 minutes, then lower the heat to 300⁰F and bake for an additional 8 minutes.  Remove the cake from the oven and allow it to cool completely in the pan.  Unmold and serve.

Diamond-Edged Melt-in-Your-Mouth Butter Cookies

Diamond-Edged Melt-in-Your-Mouth Butter Cookies - made May 17, 2011 from Bakewise by Shirley Corriher (book #110)

I'm still posting recipes I made last Tuesday - that was clearly a banner baking day.  Tomorrow is officially back to the working world for me.  I'm still behind by a few more blog posts of what I've made last week but I've written them up ahead of time so I can post them with a click of a button next week and hopefully it'll be enough to see me through the week.  I'd gotten used to baking and posting almost daily but once I exhaust my backlog posts, I'll have to scale back a bit until I adjust to a full-time working schedule again.  In the meantime....

Bakewise by Shirley Corriher gave me one of the best brownie recipes I've ever made.  Considering exactly how many I've made over the years (well over 150+), that's saying something.  So I had high hopes for this butter cookie.  Despite their simplicity or maybe because of their simplicity, good butter cookies are hard to find.  Some taste great but spread too much because they contain too much butter and some don't spread at all and are dry because they don't have enough butter.  I love plain butter cookies.  I'll even admit that, much as I scoff at "storebought" cookies and prefer to make my own, I love those danish butter cookies that come in the big tins every Christmas.  I can eat those like kettle corn, popping them in my mouth one after the other.  So much for portion control.

Given how good Shirley's brownie recipe is, I was willing to give this recipe as much optimism as possible.  The dough was very easy to work with, not too crumbly, not too greasy.  I only made a half recipe because I'm trying out as many recipes as possible this week so I was going for quantity of different recipes, not necessarily a lot out of each recipe.  I refrigerated it overnight and baked off what I needed for goodie bags the next day.

I love these cookies - they're awesome slices of butter goodness and the rock sugar or sugar crystals you roll them in before chilling and baking are a perfect complement both texture-wise with their crunch and taste-wise with their sweetness against the butter cookie.  For once, I don't advocate underbaking - these cookies taste best when they're baked properly for the right amount of time.  The edges will be crisp-crunchy like a good butter cookie should have and you don't want the middles too soft or mushy but with a uniform "snap" to them.  Shirley Corriher scores once again, not just with a good recipe but with one of the best versions I've tried so far out of any recipe for this cookie - that makes 2 for 2 from her book.  Oh, and it goes without saying to please use fresh butter - not something that's been sitting unused in the refrigerator for weeks or months.  You want to taste the sheer butter goodness.

ETA: forgot to add but someone reminded me - I substituted vanilla extract for the almond extract in this recipe and it was just fine.  I love almonds but not almond extract so I always automatically substitute vanilla extract wherever almond extract is called for.

1 cup unsalted butter, cut into 2-tablespoon pieces

1 cup granulated sugar

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon pure almond extract (I used vanilla extract)

2 large egg yolks

2 ¼ cups (9.9 ounces) bleached all-purpose flour

½ cup coarse or crystal sugar

1 large egg, beaten

1.   In a heavy-duty mixer with the paddle attachment, cream the butter, sugar, salt and almond extract until light and creamy.  Add the yolks, one at a time, and beat with each addition, just to blend in thoroughly.

2.   On low speed, beat in the flour, scraping down the bowl twice.  Divide the dough into 4 pieces.  Roll each into a log about 1 ½ inches in diameter.

3.   Sprinkle coarse sugar evenly on wax paper, the length of the rolls and about 4 inches wide.  Brush a roll lightly with beaten egg, then roll in sugar to coat well.  Repeat with each roll.  Wrap each roll individually in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 2 hours or overnight.

4.   About 30 minutes before you are ready to bake, place a shelf in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 375⁰F.

5.   Cover a heavy baking sheet with parchment paper sprayed with nonstick cooking spray.  Slice cookies into 3/8-inch slices and arrange about 1 inch apart on the sheet.

6.   Place the baking sheet on the arranged shelf.  Bake one sheet at a time until the edges just begin to brown, about 14 minutes.  Allow to cool on the sheet for 2 minutes, and then remove to a cooling rack.

Snickerdoodle Blondies

Snickerdoodle Blondies - made May 17, 2011 found on Sweets for a Saturday #13, from ArcticGardioStudio blog

1st try

I love snickerdoodles and when I saw this recipe for Snickerdoodle Blondies and the picture on Arctic Garden Studio's blog, I immediately bookmarked the post so I could go back to it later and make it.  This is essentially a snickerdoodle in bar cookie form.  It has the same sugar-cinnamon flavor and topping as a snickerdoodle cookie and is just slightly more cakey than the traditional cookie.  But that could just be in the baking.  On the original blog, what sucked me in was how dense and moist the bars looked.  Mine turned out to be more cakey.  It wasn't dry but I think I would've liked it better less baked.  Next time I'm going to cut the baking time.  The dough was also so stiff that it doesn't really smooth out during baking so if you put it in craggy, it'll come out craggy (an obvious lesson I learned).  But it tasted good so another good recipe from the Sweets for a Saturday link party.  Next time Imight add a little more liquid so the dough isn't so stiff, smooth the top better and bake it for less time.  Click title above for the original recipe and/or Arctic Garden Studio's blog.

ETA May 22, 2011 - okay, I really wanted to make these better so I tried another half batch yesterday.  This time I baked in a slightly smaller pan (6" by 9") and only baked for 20 minutes instead of 25.  The taste was the same (good) but I liked the texture much better this time around.  It was more moist, less cakey and more dense.  Still not as good looking a texture as on Nicole's blog but getting there.

2nd try came out much better

 

Devil's Food Cupcakes

Devil's Food Cupcakes - made May 17, 2011 from Mary Engelbreit's Sweet Treats Dessert Cookbook (book #109)

It's coming up on the end of my last week of time off and I'm almost done with my list of "Things To Do Before I Go Back to Work".  As you can tell, on that list, is "Bake as much as I can".  I got a fair amount of baking done on Tuesday and gave away the results to my former coworkers, some friends and my cousin.  It's been great being able to try more new recipes and I've also spent some time going through the cookbooks I have left to bake from and typing up the recipes I want to try from them.

I once went through a Mary Engelbreit phase some years ago and I think I got most, if not all, of her baking-related cookbooks.  All the cookbooks have nice layouts with pretty pictures and easy to follow recipes, not to mention being set against a backdrop of cheery Mary Engelbreit patterns.  So naturally I got sucked in (it doesn't take much).  I'm past the Mary Engelbreit phase now but surprisingly I've found some good recipes in her cookbooks.

I tried this recipe for devil's food cupcakes partly to use up some buttermilk and partly because I have yet to find a memorable devil's food cake recipe that I like.  And cupcakes can be the bane of my baking existence.  In my abhorrence of dry cupcakes, I tend to underbake them.  While they're not dry, underbaked cupcakes tend to be more dense than they should be and sometimes don't taste right.  So I haven't cracked the cupcake secret yet.  But I keep trying.  Someday I'll get it right. 

And this cupcake recipe is a good start.  The cupcakes were a nice deep chocolate thanks to Pernigotti cocoa and the texture was just right - cakey, fluffy, moist.  For once I think I took them out at the right time, although I was getting twitchy at the end and almost took them out too soon again. Even the frosting was good, much better than the one from the Chocolate Velvet Cakes recipe.  I only used a generous 2 cups powdered sugar, not 3 full cups, and it turned out fine.  Just add enough milk until it's the consistency you want for spreading.

1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour

2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Pernigotti and it was perfect)

1 ½ teaspoons baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 ½ cups sugar

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

1 1/3 cups buttermilk

Easy Buttercream Frosting

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

3 cups confectioners’ sugar

2 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Pinch of salt

Food coloring (optional)

Sprinkles, mini M&Ms, colored sugar, etc, for decorating

1.      Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Line 20 muffin cups with foil liners.

2.     In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt.

3.     In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Beat in the vanilla.  On low speed, add the flour mixture alternating with the buttermilk, beginning and ending with the flour mixture.  Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups, filling each one about two-thirds full.

4.     Bake the cupcakes for 17 to 19 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean.  Let cool completely in the pans on wire racks.

5.     To make the frosting: In a large bowl, cream the butter with an electric mixer until very soft and light, about 3 minutes.  Add the remaining ingredients and beat until smooth and fluffy.  Use immediately or cover and refrigerate until needed.

6.     If desired, divide the frosting among several bowls and tint it different colors with food coloring; leave one bowl of frosting white.  Ice the cupcakes generously with the frosting.  Before the frosting has set, sprinkle the decorations on top.